Harry Styles didn’t spit on anyone… but he should have
It’s been a weird few months for Harry Styles. Once beloved for his vocal talent, daring fashion sense, and sweet boyish charm, he’s recently begun to shed his difficult-to-dislike public image to become subject for Internet backlash and minor celebrity scandal.
At the moment, it’s hard to say Styles did anything to earn his newly controversial reputation. Starring in the Olivia Wilde directed film, Don’t Worry Darling, his evident romance with Wilde and her evident clash with Styles’ co-star, Florence Pugh, has prompted a gossip-fueled promo campaign that’s overtaken discussion of the movie itself. Speculations over a potentially toxic work environment have prevailed online. What contribution Styles had to this, if any, is unknown. If you’re a fan of Pugh, however, Styles’ relationship with Wilde still puts him in enemy territory. Celebrity sleuths are so intent, in fact, on assessing any behind-the-scenes drama that a brief clip of Styles sitting down at the Don’t Worry Darling premiere lead to a widely-circulated theory that Styles had spit on actor Chris Pine. He very clearly did not.
Considering how Styles’ own fans have treated Wilde with suspicion for their own parasocial purposes, it’s definitely a worse time right now to be her than it is to be him (especially when you add in rumors that Wilde began seeing Styles while still in a relationship with Jason Sudeikis). Regardless of his dating life, though, Styles’ public persona has been decreasing in likeability for some time, in ways that appear incredibly familiar to the publicity cycle of other popstars, albeit not usually of Styles’ gender. Olivia Wilde may more obviously be a victim of misogynistic backlash, but Harry Styles is getting cancelled like a woman.
Harry Styles and Shania Twain singing “Man I Feel Like a Woman” at Coachella 2022
Even before the recent wave of hostility, one criticism has haunted Styles’ career for years, possibly acting as the bedrock for the current controversies. Though the former boyband member has been praised by many for his gender-nonconforming fashion and brand of non-toxic masculinity, his refusal to label his sexual orientation has lead some to accuse him of “queerbaiting,” criticizing his supposed pandering to the queer community without actually taking on the social burden of being an out queer man.
These claims against Styles have never been fair. As Candace Owens’ poster-child for the fall of “manly men” due to his Vogue cover photo donned in a frilly white dress, it’s inaccurate to say that Styles has never been victimized by anti-queer rhetoric. He likely would face more bigoted attacks if he were to label himself as something other than straight, but Styles does not owe a disclosure of his sexual orientation to anyone, especially a general public made up of strangers. Even outside of the invasive-ickiness implied in the demand for him to out himself, assuming that Styles is straight merely because he hasn’t said otherwise positions heterosexuality as the default. Perhaps more important, though, is that accusing a man of queer-cosplay just because he sometimes wears dresses means we’re enabling hetero men to be boring forever.
There is valid social critique in assessing Styles’ privilege. Regarding the Vogue cover, actor Billy Porter told The Sunday Times, “I created the conversation[about non-binary fashion] and yet Vogue still put Harry Styles, a straight white man, in a dress on their cover for the first time.” It may have been presumptive for Porter to describe Styles as a straight man when Styles himself has never said this, but his frustration is understandable. Black and Latino queer folk have been the backbone of the fight for LGBTQ rights for decades, yet white cis gay men are undoubtedly the most visible and least marginalized demographic of the queer community, often appropriating signifiers of Black and Latino queer culture without proper credit to their origins. The fact that Harry Styles, a white, presumably-cis, straight-passing (if not actually straight) man is the first male to ever cover fashion’s biggest magazine by himself–and is doing so in a gown that prompted widespread discussions about gender-coded clothing–is unfortunate when considering all the queer folk who could’ve covered that ground already, had they just been given the opportunity.
Styles’ privilege is also relevant to conversations surrounding his recent work as an actor. Neither Don’t Worry Darling, which had a wide-release this past weekend, nor My Policeman, another film starring Styles which will hit most theaters next month, have received rave reviews from critics. Styles performances, in particular, are considered to be weak, if not just plain bad. Had he not been a world-famous popstar with a dedicated fandom, it’s unlikely Styles would be cast in any feature films based on his current acting abilities. Is Harry Styles to blame for that though?
It’s not like Styles is the first person to take advantage of the opportunities being rich, famous, and hot offers. Ansel Elgort not only contributed the worst performance in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 West Side Story adaptation, the actor might have single-handedly derailed the film’s promo campaign as reporters fixated on the sexual assault allegations lobbied against him in June of 2020. Even before the allegations, Elgort’s value as an actor could be easily defined as “Miles Teller but without the talent.” The fact that he’s been able to succeed in the film industry, earn Golden Globe nominations, and get INVITED TO BRITNEY SPEARS’ WEDDING is an injustice that far outmeasures anything implied by the success of Harry Styles. And yet Styles is being skewered on Twitter in ways Elgort never has.
While promoting My Policeman, Styles spoke about filming a gay sex scene, saying,
“So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it. There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [director Michael] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”
The statement was ignorant. It’s not outrageous that My Policeman’s filmmakers would choose to emphasize the romantic overtones of the referenced sex scene, but which films Styles believes his movie is setting itself apart from is unclear. Gay sex is rarely shown explicitly on the big screen; to imply the eroticism of gay sexuality has gone too far in cinematic depictions feels quietly homophobic.
To Styles’ credit, he was likely trying to speak to the intentions of the director, Michael Grandage, who is a gay man himself. Grandage said he wanted to make the sex in the film “something that was choreographically interesting and not just some kind of thrusting sense of sex going on.” Styles’ quote is a bastardized version of that sentiment; well-meaning, but poorly articulated. His words were immediately met, however, with spin that was less-than charitable.
This kind of scrutiny is being increasingly applied to anything and everything Styles says publicly. Responding to allegations of queerbaiting, he told Rolling Stone, “Sometimes people say, ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone. If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something.” This quote was used to lambast Styles and Olivia Wilde, with Twitter users mocking Wilde for leaving her former partner for a man who won’t “claim” her.
At the moment, much of the backlash Styles is facing is benign and unlikely to affect his career. A tide is clearly turning, however, in favor of expressing annoyance with the omnipresence of his celebrity:
For the record, there is little-to-no evidence that Styles is a zionist, but celebrity sleuths and the Extremely Online are beginning to publicize dossiers of inflated claims to “cancel” him nonetheless–all so the public can be granted an “excuse” to hate him.
It appears that Styles may be entering his own “love-hate-redemption cycle,” referring to the routine process in which a public figure is initially deified to an unsustainable intensity. As their career peaks and their face is everywhere the eye can see, an increasing amount of the public begins to find their success obnoxious and undeserved. Once enough people are fed up with their omnipresence in the media, a mission develops to de-throne them–an easy task when the individual is already being held to impossible standards.
Following Styles’ departure from One Direction, his talents were given increased attention as a solo artist. Much of the 1D uninitiated were shocked to discover his vocal prowess and musical influences that contrasted the stereotype of a manufactured boyband. The fact that Styles showed more promise as a musician than his previous critics assumed, along with his unwillingness to denounce his original demographic of teen girls, made him a traditional rock star of a new generation, one less confined by bullshit rockist philosophies. Plus, he wore nail polish and wasn’t shy about his support of the LGBTQ community, allowing him to be portrayed as either an unofficially labeled queer person with a massive following or a progressive “ally” who’s secure enough in his masculinity to be unbothered by his proximity to queerness. Either way, HOT.
Styles never pretended to be an activist for any cause, nor did he claim to be capable of articulating complex points within the realm of social justice, but once the public crowned him a Woke King, the fact that his persona is dominantly apolitical and he sometimes says things that are dumb is now reason to knock him off the pedestal other people placed him on.
The love-hate-redemption cycle is a problem that affects female celebrities far more than it does male ones, meaning Styles downfall would have been more predictable, and perhaps even avoidable had his PR team recognized the potential for it, which they might have if he were a woman. If a girl singer ever attempted to be as overexposed as Styles currently is–letting album campaigns follow one another so closely with back-to-back tours, all while starring in multiple wide-release films–the backlash would certainly have been a lot more… Swift…
If anyone’s mastered the art of allowing herself to be successful-in-public then disappearing from sight before her success starts to annoy people, it’s Taylor Swift, but only because she’s suffered a level of backlash that puts the jokes about Harry Styles’ acting abilities to shame. Following 2016’s infamous #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty, Swift became a personification of the love-hate-redemption cycle, overcoming the controversies that once plagued her *reputation* by learning how to successfully manipulate her public image through reinvention.
Truthfully, getting cancelled in a similar fashion to female public figures might be the most gender-nonconforming thing Styles has ever done, but he’s yet to hone the also woefully female skill of constantly adapting the aesthetics of his public image to fit the current moment. Popstars like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga (girls) maintain their careers by keeping the public guessing about what their next “era” will entail, while popstars like Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran (dudes) are permitted to maintain the same shticks throughout their careers–shticks that involve almost no choreographed dances, by the way, and very little props (booooo!).
Harry Styles has been inhabiting the same role in his music and the media since he left 1D. He’s a sensitive nice-boy who’s not afraid to cry or talk about his love of rom-coms in interviews. He writes songs about eating women out, without mention of any expectation for the favor to be returned. He has “male protagonist written by a woman” energy, and it’s gotten boring.
If Styles wants to preserve his popularity and avoid the full-blown scandal that will come if he keeps prodding the Extremely Online and their eagerness to “expose” the problematic pasts of the rich and famous, he has to re-invent his popstar persona, preferably to something less jovial and easygoing than his current one.
Obviously, Styles did not spit on Chris Pine, but the theories on this perceived act of hostility were more interesting and compelling than anything critics have found in his two recent films. The fact that Spitgate came as an offshoot of ongoing drama from the set of Don’t Worry Darling makes his imagined assault on Pine a potential act of aggressive defensiveness for Styles’ girlfriend, Wilde. Leaning into that aggression could get his career away from its encroaching slump, taking his “male protagonist written by a woman” energy into a new direction. You do need to occasionally move in more than ONE direction, Mr. Styles.
Should Styles re-emerge in his next era with a Swift-inspired reinvention, he’ll conquer the world again with songs acknowledging that he enjoys receiving oral sex as much as (or perhaps even more than) giving it. He’ll be the kind of boyfriend that would spit on a man for disrespecting his woman (not that I think Chris Pine would ever disrespect anyone, or is anything other than perfect for that matter). And maybe he’ll let a gay sex-tape “leak” to finally put an end to the queerbaiting rumors AND make him unquestionably cooler.
It’s just an idea.